Reliving the transformation of GYSD

Dan Maurath is a corps member serving on the Bank of America Team at A.J. Dorsa Elementary School.

At the end of service days past, I found myself visually amnesiac. I could not remember how the school campus or park had once looked. The site had been so transformed that my memory was also transformed. The faded faint lines faded in my memory, replaced by the bright colorful paint of the blacktop and murals.

Transform was our theme for Global Youth Service Day 2011. So on April 16 at Majestic Way Elementary, I sought to capture the transformation of the day. I made a visual record of the transformation. I recorded the initial outlook of the school and the progression of it into the vibrant campus it’s become. I made two separate time-lapses, one of which is included below, and a short documentary entitled GYSD 11.

The time-lapses were shot at 10-minute intervals throughout the lifespan of the projects. I sourced much of the documentary from volunteers and other corps members who became amateur filmmakers for the day, documenting the progress of their projects and the transformation through their eyes. All 11 perspectives were edited together to produce a single cohesive record of all that transformed.

I invite you as a reader to witness the change giving a morning can produce and as a volunteer to see the transformation you helped create.

Dan Maurath, Corps Member CYSJ

Serving with excellence

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyday this week a City Year San José/Silicon Valley staff or Corps Member will share how the words and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. has impacted their life. Today, Staff Member Stephanie Kim discusses how physical service fits into City Year’s service model and how it relates to a quotation said by Dr. King.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

–Martin Luther King, Jr.

Attendance. Behavior. Course Performance.

The overall objective of City Year’s core program, Whole School, Whole Child is to improve these proven early warning indicators of students dropping out of school.

But where does physical service fit in to City Year’s laser-like focus on education?

Senior Corps Member Liz June paints the USC logo with student volunteers and a parent at Lee Mathson Middle School. The service day was sponsored by Team Sponsor Applied Materials.

This seemingly innocent question began to keep me up at night as I agonized over finding the answer to how physical service fits in with City Year’s education focus. After mulling over the question for longer than I’d like to admit, I realized that physical service directly relates to City Year’s efforts to keep students in school and on track to graduate from high school on time.

The Whole School, Whole Child Program focuses on improving the ABC’s of the high school dropout crisis: Attendance, Behavior and Course Performance.

City Year intervenes by providing three integrated service elements proven to positively affect the ABC’s: academic support, a positive school climate and after-school programming.

Physical service enables us to create a positive school climate in high-need schools. We renovate schools, paint murals, plant gardens, create play spaces and refurbish community centers; we transform schools and communities. Through physical service, we breathe life back into drab school campuses and create a positive school climate conducive to learning and achievement.

At my first City Year service day, we painted 32 college logos on Lee Mathson Middle School’s volleyball and basketball courts. Students came bounding onto the blacktop exclaiming, “I’m going to go there!” as they pointed to different logos. The excitement and determination in the students’ reactions made it evident that we are creating a college going culture for students who grow up thinking that college is not a realistic option for them.

Through physical service, we are showing our students that college is a reality for them, moreover an expectation.

Regardless of if we are tutoring in a classroom or building planter boxes, the students are the reason we serve. If I can contribute to beautifying a school campus and getting kids excited to go to school by mulching all day, I will undertake that job with painstaking excellence, for our students.

Thousands of volunteers will join City Year’s 1,750 corps members and staff at 20 City Year sites across the nation to serve their communities on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. At City Year, Dr. King’s birthday is a “day ON, not a day off.”

Join us on Monday, January 17^th, 2011 as we create a positive school climate at Daniel Lairon Elementary School to honor the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of the “beloved community.”

Stephanie Kim, Development Associate CYSJ

Creating a college going culture

With help from our friends at Applied Materials, City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley hosted a powerful day of service at Lee Mathson Middle School, which is one of our service partners. (And the service team that Applied Materials is so graciously sponsoring this school year!)

At a school where the API scores have unfortunately been on the decline over the past couple years, it was extremely important to the administration and teachers at Mathson that we encourage the students to strive to seek college as a viable option once they graduate from high school.

To create this “college going culture,” our Civic Engagement Team traced out 32 college logos from all across the country on all of the basketball and volleyball courts that our volunteers painted at the service day this past Saturday morning.

Here are some of our favorite photos from the day!

Development Manager Preety Kaur paints the University of Oregon logo with a student volunteer.

Corps member Amber Bunnell hard at work with some student volunteers.

Jeff Rangel of Applied Materials paints the top of the key on one of the basketball courts.

For the full album of photos, just click here.

Post by Megan Baker, Recruitment Project Leader CYSJ

Photos by Stephanie Kim, Development Associate CYSJ